Please read the following for updates.  The original copy is black, updated facts and ideas are noted by a pink date (10/14/04).

Please attend the 2005 Budget Hearings to help keep fields affordable.

The Mayor has sent his proposed budget for 2005 to the Seattle City Council for approval.  In the proposed budget he wants to raise the rates on the sand fields in Seattle from $25 per hour, up to $40 per hour!  This 60% increase primarily targets one group, Co-Rec Soccer players.

Rates on the sand fields have traditionally been based on the maintenance and scheduling costs of the field. In 2002 we gave testimony that the maintenance costs of the sand and synthetic fields were already being covered by adult user groups; they didn’t just break even, they turned a profit. The 2003 rates increased from $22 per hour for all field surfaces, to $25 for sand, $40 for grass and Park Department synthetic turf, and $55 for Seattle School District synthetic turf. Middle and lower income family participation has already fallen off because of this.

We don’t understand the logic behind raising fees disproportionately on soccer again, when the result is to lose teams, which removes money from the economy, destroys community spirit, and reduces the health of the general population.  Why turn the largest recreational sport in our city, and the world, into something only the affluent can afford? 

The increase to $40/hour will just affect adult sportsfield users.  The kids are still being subsidized by adult use.  They are currently paying $4.00 per game.  In 2004 Co-Rec Soccer scheduled 3209 games on the Seattle sand fields.  All other adult leagues accounted for 416 games, which means that Co-Rec Soccer accounts for 89% of adult Seattle field sports sand use.  Those 3209 games if raised by $15 per hour would bring in additional revenue of $77,927.  The 416 games would bring in approximately $10,000.  They are already over the $80,000 in additional revenue before they even account for softball/baseball.

The seven (actually nine) sand soccer fields affected are Delridge, Genesee Lower, Hiawatha, High Point, Georgetown, Lower Woodland #2, Lower Woodland #7, Miller and Washington Park.

The nine baseball/softball fields are: 2 @ Delridge, 1 @ Georgetown, 2 @ Hiawatha, 2 @ Miller, and 2 @ Washington Park.  All of the sand softball fields overlap the soccer fields.  Soccer is played year-round, softball is not.  Adults rarely play on these sand baseball/softball fields, while soccer players use these fields constantly.  Most of the baseball/softball use is youth, who won’t be affected.  Why is soccer being singled out?

 When they say that the sand field use fee will be comparable to other regional field use fees, they are talking about King County.  No other Park Department we use comes even close to the high cost of King County Parks.  Marymoor was booked solid on weeknights until the cost of a game more than doubled in 2003.  In 2002 we had 1242 games at King County fields.  In 2004 we had 671, a loss of 571 games.  The fields are underutilized and often vacant now.  Why should Seattle Parks model their fees after the county? 

Sand soccer is played all year, generates revenue all year, is of a much lower quality than grass or turf, and fully pays for itself.  The users of the sand based soccer fields are an ethnically and economically diverse group of city residents that only wish to be able to play the sport they love.  We need to oppose these increases now because Seattle Parks will continue to raise fees in the future if they see recreational soccer teams as an easy source of extra revenue.

The Seattle School District has proposed raising the 2005 rates on their synthetic fields from $55 to $95 per hour.  In 2002, the synthetic fields cost $33 per game.  In 2005, with the proposed rate hike, the cost will be $166 per game without lights!  A 400% increase over 3 years!  This will turn Seattle School District fields into the most expensive fields in the region.

In 2001, we supported the Joint Athletic Facilities Development Program (JAFDP) as a way to increase the capacity and improve the quality of play on all of the Seattle fields for youth and adults.  Seattle Parks and the School District are partners, jointly providing facilities and programming to meet the growing demand for more field time.  But the fee increases proposed for 2005 on the Seattle School District turf fields will effectively evict low-income and recreational soccer players over the age of 18 from the very facilities that their votes and tax dollars have gone to support.  It will further limit the recreational opportunities of a public that has recently been found to be more overweight than ever before.

And now, with the incredibly high fees proposed for the synthetic fields, the benefits and improvements that we have waited for will only be enjoyed by youth programs (whose prices did not increase), premier teams and the elite-almost exclusively male-leagues, whose sponsors can afford to cover the huge increase.

Park and School District facility investments should improve field availability for everyone, regardless of skill or income level.  Remember that these are tough economic times for city residents and that our budgets are tight as well.  Don’t price young people, senior citizens, college students and low-income families out of the School District turf fields that they have been supporting by paying additional taxes every year.  These extreme fee increases, instead of maximizing revenue for the city, could wind up leaving fields under-utilized and Seattle residents being forced to travel to other cities in order to find affordable field time.

At the current hourly rate, synthetic fields already generate revenue well beyond maintenance & operating costs.  In 2001, Seattle Parks told the Parks Committee and the Council’s committee that the maintenance costs of a synthetic field is approximately $8,000 per year.  The synthetic fields do not need much maintenance – no dragging and lining every day.  Unlike the grass fields that softball and baseball get to play on, there is no need to mow and fertilize them.  Why are the rates being raised so drastically on Seattle School District soccer fields?

It is an outrage that the Seattle School District and Park Department would spend so many years and so much taxpayer money to develop the synthetic fields (to increase capacity), by using the local sports community to pass levies while the field-use rates are reasonable, and then turn around and increase the rates on synthetic fields 400% after a few years.

Please e-mail the Seattle School District Boardmembers and officials listed below (cut and paste all of them into your “send to” line), to let them know that you don’t approve of their proposed rate increase and it’s effect on local recreational soccer!

cbath@seattleschools.org, jasisson@seattleschools.org, sally.soriano@seattleschools.org, darlene.flynn@seattleschools.org, brita.butler-wall@seattleschools.org, dick.lilly@seattleschools.org, mary.bass@seattleschools.org, irene.stewart@seattleschools.org, jan.kumasaka@seattleschools.org, rsmanhas@seattleschools.org, mcwashington@seattleschools.org, alhairston@seattleschools.org, sjnielsen@seattleschools.org, acheung@seattleschools.org

You may contact Seattle Public School Superintendent Raj Manhas at 206-252-0100.  Further information about the Seattle School District Board, including phone numbers, can be found at:  http://www.seattleschools.org/area/board/contact.xml

SOCCER’S VOICE HEARD BY CITY AND COUNTY COUNCILS? (11/22/02)

Co-Rec Soccer representatives attended 26 meetings with both Seattle or King County Councils asking for fair field-use fees.  Councilmembers also received hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from our players and other leagues.  In an extra effort to get support, Co-Rec Soccer developed a flyer with members of the Washington State Women’s Soccer Association (WSWSA), who in turn handed them out at the U.S. Women’s soccer game. 

    For the first time ever, the Councils have acknowledged a distinction between “break-even” sand and expensive grass surfaces by adjusting the fees more fairly, at least for now.  Thanks to all of you, the Councils have requested both Park Departments to compare revenue vs. maintenance costs for various field surfaces in 2003.  Unfortunately, much damage has been done. We have started losing teams, other fees went up and more increases may be on the way.

King County Council votes 13–0 to freeze fees on sand until January 31 for further study, but there are problems…

• Bob Burns, Director of King Co. Parks will prepare the report of maintenance costs and may plan to add in the salaries of many county officials and administrators, such as his own, beyond salaries of schedulers and crews into overhead charges in an effort to justify higher rates for the sand fields.

• The director has also been given the authority in a 7 – 6 vote to raise rates every 4 months, of up to 49%, to see how many teams will drop out before he lowers them in his “market-driven” experiment.  He is actively trying to develop a waiting list of leagues who might pay more for the fields.

• Executive Ron Sims is less than 45 days away from signing the four lighted sand Marymoor fields over to the Lake Washington Youth Soccer Association (LWYSA).  They are proposing to resurface the fields with synthetic and would be in control of charging so called “market-rate” fees of over $100 per game.  There is probably nothing to stop them from charging these high rates on the sand fields before they are resurfaced in order to raise money.  If soccer teams drop out due to high fees, other sports, such as lacrosse, which won’t play on sand, have agreed to move in once the synthetic surfaces are installed.  Even if the prices go back down eventually, historical field-use rights would have been lost by soccer.  There does not seem to be any guarantee that the historical rights of the adult soccer leagues will not be lost to the LWYSA youth or other sports leagues.  They should build lighted fields elsewhere to increase game capacity.

Seattle City Council votes 9–0 to lower hourly fees on synthetic to $40, to raise fees on grass to $40 and to charge a reasonable $25 for sand.  While better than the Parks proposal on field surfaces, there are problems…

• In an attempt to bring down the cost of the synthetic fields, the City Council inadvertently made matters worse by proposing to raise the rate on sand, which would have been devastating because there are so many more games played on sand.  It took several meetings to convince Councilmembers and their Legislative Analyst of their misunderstanding and we appreciate the resulting efforts of Conlin, Licata and Steinbrueck to keep sand frozen at the Park Departments proposed rate increase. Meanwhile...

• The day after the council voted for more equity in fees, we found out that an additional $5 per hour increase in light fees over the $10 per hour that Parks had proposed had “slipped through” in the budget package without the Council being aware, according to a City Council Aide.  This amounts to an additional $25,000.  Obviously this fee hits soccer hard because we play in all the dark months.  Also, City Light has stated they believe electrical rates will go down in the next 18 months so there is no fair reason to triple the lights fees.

• Even though an extra $13,000 was collected from the adult field-use fee adjustment, the Council charged youth sports another $55,000.  So, with the additional lights fees of $25,000, they actually raised a total of  $93,000 more than the original increase of $250,000 requested by Seattle Parks.  Some of these charges are way over the maintenance cost of the facilities, are not being used for the development of sports, but are simply added to the general fund.  In essence, the Council created an extra charge or “tax” on exercise that most certainly will reduce the number of people able to play.  We were actually lucky.  The rates on all sports leagues could have ended up much higher than they did because the City Council increased all the fees throughout the city and could have increased the field-use fees much more if everyone had not questioned their actions.

• There is hope.  In a unanimous vote the Council asked for a Statement of Legislative Intent (SLI) in 2003 to compare maintenance costs against revenue generated by fees.  It will certainly support our findings.  However, if fees are assessed according to quality only, as was the case with synthetic surfaces in this budget, then Parks can continue with their “exercise tax” or “market-rate” philosophy and eliminate more lower-income teams.  Perhaps we can all convince elected officials that they are heading down the wrong path with this kind of destructive taxation.

     Co-Rec Soccer has received our winter field schedule from Seattle Parks for 2003 which attempts to charge us for an extra 15 minutes per game for an additional $6.25 on sand and $10.00 on synthetic fields.  With the extra lights this is a $46,000 problem.  In 1993, it was decided by Parks and approved by the Park Board to allow a complimentary 5-minute water break between halves and a 10-minute grace period between games regardless of the league that the teams were from.  Soccer leagues could then choose to rent the fields for 1.5 to 2 hours for games.  We chose to stay at 1.5 hours, the same game length that we have used for 20 years.  Now Parks wants to charge us for 1.75 hours, forcing us to pay for 15 minutes after each game.  Do they charge basketball players for an extra 15 minutes while they exit the gym?

     Co-Rec Soccer is currently down over 90 teams for the Winter ’03 Season and has extended the registration deadline.  We do not understand the logic behind raising fees disproportionately on outdoor sports when the result is to lose teams, which removes money from the economy, destroys community spirit, and reduces the health of the general population.  One game per day at a field costs the Park Departments as much as 5 games per day at the same field.  Parks will now receive less revenue from fields that would not have had any increased maintenance cost.  It is this kind of management that causes a “budget crisis”. 

     The Seattle City Council in effect has created an “exercise tax” and we will have to continue to voice our protests.  A summit between all the sports leagues has been planned.  Perhaps we need to start a “Repeal the Exercise Taxes” campaign.  We have won some and lost some and will get back to you about partial refunds after January 31.  Please make sure we have your e-mail address and phone number.  If you have any questions please contact us.  Thanks for all your support!

Click for more background information concerning the objections to the 2003 budget and e-mail addresses of elected officials if you want to respond to the outcome of the budgets.